The New Art Practice in Yugoslavia, 1966-1978

their first exhibition in Novi Sad in the autumn of 1970 they
exhibited works which had all the characteristics of paintings),
the group KOD were from the start interested in language
and the problems it involved, and this was reflected in all the
works they produced and in all the media they used.
The group KOD was founded in April 1970. The first members
were Branko Andri, Slavko Bogdanovi, Janez Kocijani,
Miroslav Mandi, Slobodan Tima and myself. The group was
founded on the initiative of Kocijani. Tima and myself.
We studied literature, wrote poetry, literary and music reviews,
contributed articles for Index and were members of its
editorial staff; we got together regularly for long discussions.
All this resulted in the need to undertake a joint act:on, so
in one of the 1969 issues of Index we wrote a project «The key
keying the door in the door. (we wrote poems and texts on
this topic, varied them and produced several concrete poems
all the work remaining in the domain of poetry). After discussing
this with the other future members whom we knew by their
poetry or through discussion at literary evenings, we decided
to set up a group which would carry out investigations into
new phenomena in art.
The experience we had at the moment of the founding of the
group mainly focused on literary poetic work, but there had
been a visible effort (especially by Tima) to transcend the
conventional boundaries of poetry. Earlier during our
discussions, and especially at the moment of the founding
of the group, we felt that the efforts made so far in this
direction were insufficient, and the need was felt for the
introduction of other media, for an integral approach to the
problem of art, an attempt to discover new areas which at
that moment were still unknown to us.
In achieving this, we were to use the variety of interests
and the wide-renging experience we had so far
acquired: the study of literature with all its problems and
interest in phenomenology and structuralism, the problems of
language and linguistics, film and theatre (Miroslav Mandi),
Dada and Surrealism (Slavko Bogdanovi), Wittgenstein
(Philosophic Investigations and Tractatus). twentieth- century
painting, G. Stein (Miroslav Mandi), Fi'mbaud and Mallarme
(especially S. Tima), Borges, McLuhan, Rock and mixed
media (Bora Cosi), pop-art, Duchamp, new music (pop and
electronic), constructivism, OHO, Zen (myself), Nietzsche, later
Freud. then Jung. Euclid's geometry, mythology ...
Founding the group with the intention of doing something
new in art meant, on the one hand, that writing poetry or
making use of some other conventional form of expression in
the usual way could not exhaust the possibilities of art
as we saw it, it did not correspond to our nature, to the
nature of our time every artist and every period must
have their proper expression, their own art: the experience of
earlier art or the art of others can serve only as a starting
point, guideline, raw-material, but cannot determine the scope
of activity. On the other hand, by founding the group we did
not adopt a specific model for our activities, thought, life,
mecEa and since the latest trends in art were insufficienty
known or practically unknown to us, at the beginning we
mainly relied on intuition: to realize what we conceived to
be art, with the awwareness that comparisons were possible
and inevitable (to repeat an experience which somebody else
has already come upon, to discover later that someone had a
similar experience almost at the same time, or to anticipate
somebody's later experience).
After the founding of the group we agreed that the term
most adequate for our group would be that taken from
linguistics and the informaton theory: we chose KOD (Code)
a system of signs which enables communication, the
transmittance of the message from one system into another.
At first we did not have a clear idea about what we were
to do. We had to come to this through continual discussion
and joint action, which implied regular meetings, practically
living together. We did not feel we belonged to any particular
movement, nor did we set up a movement; that was something
to be attained through work. In order to present our work and
record it, we decided to set up a review of new art, because
those already in existence only partly dealt with the kind of
of art we wished to create. The group applied to the Community
of Interest in Culture of Novi Sad for funds. It was to be a
quarterly review entitled «KOD» and was to carry works on
the new art by Yugoslav and foreign authors. There was some
disagreement among the members as to whether this review
was necessary at all, but the application was finally submitted.
The funds were not granted.
Some of the ideas, attitudes and reflections set down in the
application (April 21, 1970) are indicative of the group's
later work, and they represented the members' views on art
in general, on the cultural milieu in which they lived and the
way they conceived their own work in art. It represented,
therefore, a programme in the broadest sense of the term. In
any case, the ideas presented in the application could not
have been accepted: the group had known in advance that
it would have to rely on its own resources.
«To make a review means to actually live it. Today a review
cannot exist solely by what is in it, as this means so little
for fluxus or the concept. For the people editing the review,
it must be only a way of reminiscing and in no case an
opportunity to vent their feelings: this furthermore means that
the review requires that everything that appears in the review
should be realized by young people through various systems.
The review is thus the reflection of the life of these young
people. Therefore, a review of this kind is a medium for the
re-examination and discovery of different possibilities of
expression with new values. To become a medium for the new
activity, the review must reject the deep-rooted attitude towards
tradition as a heritage or tradition as a monument. It should
proceed from structure, as it is present in us ... In order to
exist indenpendently, the review has the option not to
appear ... The publication should not be more than a record.
It will bear evidence of the time in which we live, it will
represent the time and will not simply be its reflection ... The
publication will cover modern developments in all fields of
art. This does not mean that its activity ... will consist only in
following events, it will also try to be creative: the group who
are starting the review and all those expected to contribute
will try as far as possible to discover and introduce new
possibilities for the synthesis of art, assumed by the very
decision to start a publication ... the activity of the publication
would proceed along two main lines. The first is the desire
to follow and gradually become integrated in the latest trends
in modern art, thus bringing them closer to a milieu which has
insufficient knowledge of them ... The second, even more
important, would cover a) the revival of such trends in our
community and b) research into new trends, the use of
experience drawn from them, creativity ... the most important
activity being the realization of different projects by the
group in open space urban space or natural environment..
The work which the group planned and started included all
the forms of artistic expression. The early work falls with :n
the sphere of fluxus and actions, and was most often carried
out in the space by the entrance to the Catholic Church (the
so called Catholic Porch) in front of the Youth Tribune; it had
the working title Liberation which determined its intimate and
anonymous character the spectators were there only by
chance. For instance, in the centre of Novi Sad, participant A
(Miroslav Mandi) and participant B (Slobodan Tima) are
standing back to back. Participant A asks: «What do I see?.
Participant B: «The sea. And me?. Participant A replies:
«Antisea.. Or: in the centre we all get onto buses going in
different directions, we get off after a number of stops, return
and recount our experiences and observations. Or: we walk
around town with Miroslav Mandi all wrapped up in white
cre'pe paper.
The first public appearance of KOD, when the founding of
the group was first announced, was before the beginning of an
evening in the Parket-salon of the Youth Tribune on April
9, 1970. A spatial intervent:on in the Parket-salon (Fine Arts
Salon) was made: the corners of the gallery were diagonally
linked by a rope, and then a large number of vertical ropes
were put up with nails hanging from them.
The next project, which we recorded (photographed) was
realized on April 18, 1970 according to an idea suggested by
Slobodan Tima: in the square (the Catholic Porch), between
two buildings, an iron wire construction of a square was
raised to a height of 9 metres by means of a nylon thread.
This meant the placing of a square, i.e. of something that in
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